Legendary Peru: Andean Culture and Inca Treasures

Anita G. Cook is an archaeologist who specializes in the Central Andes. She is professor emerita at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and has served as a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Anita has conducted archaeological tours in the Andes since 1987 and was a visiting professor of anthropology at the National University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru. As director of the Lower Ica Valley Archaeological Project and co-director of the Conchopata Archaeological Project in Ayacucho, her research focuses on the emergence of early Andean states and empires—in particular the Wari and Tiwnaku, predecessors of the Inca—with a particular focus on material culture, the visual arts, and iconography. She received Municipal Honorary Recognition and a medal for defending and preserving the site of Conchopata.

Anita’s research has been internationally recognized through grant and fellowship awards including the Fulbright Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, the National Gallery of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

She is an author and co-editor of the forthcoming volume Empire of the Ancestors: The Wari of the Middle Horizon, and previously published Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru and a book in Spanish about pre-Inca civilizations, as well as numerous articles. She has been a consultant for national and international museum exhibits and research seminars and she is active in conservation efforts to protect threatened cultural remains in Andean South America.

Bill Sapp is an archaeologist with special expertise in the Andes. He has been leading tours for almost two decades and is an expert in the Inca site of Machu Picchu, the Machu Picchu Sanctuary, the Sacred Valley, and other sites in and around Cusco. Bill received his PhD in Anthropology from UCLA, where his dissertation documented his excavations at Cabur, a Lambayeque country palace located on Peru’s north coast. He also excavated at Farfán, a large Lambayeque and Chimú administrative center, and El Algarrobal de Moro, a Chimú administrative site in the Jequetepeque Valley. His primary interests are the late prehispanic polities and the structure and development of their administrative systems. Bill previously served on the Board of Conservation Volunteers International Program, where for a number of years he brought volunteers to Machu Picchu Sanctuary to work with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of the Environment to maintain and protect the sites and trails within the Sanctuary. Bill currently works as an archaeologist and tribal liaison for the US Forest Service on the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico.

Dr. Melissa Vogel is an Andean archaeologist turned business anthropologist and professor emerita of anthropology at Clemson University. She conducted archaeological fieldwork on the north coast of Peru for 18 years and is one of the world’s foremost experts on the ancient Casma culture. Her academic research focused on the development of cities, gender and interpolity relations in pre-Hispanic Peru, and she has authored two books, Life on the Frontier in Ancient Peru and The Casma City of El Purgatorio: Ancient Urbanism in the Andes. Melissa is also the founding director of Clemson’s Business Anthropology program, which applies social science and a global mindset to solving everyday business problems in market research, organizational culture, and technology. Her consulting company, Great Heron Insights, provides research and strategy services as well as training and professional development. She produces a weekly video newsletter called The Anthro Minute and is committed to taking anthropology out of the ivory tower, demonstrating its relevance to everyday life, and using it to improve cross-cultural understanding. 

Abigail Levine is an archaeologist with a regional specialty in the south central Andes. She received her PhD in anthropology from UCLA in 2012, with a focus on the evolution of complex societies, and specifically, the role of war and trade in this process.  Her research at the archaeological site of Taraco, located in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Peru, was featured in the New York Times and was named one of the top 10 discoveries of 2011 by Archaeology Magazine. Abigail has taught numerous anthropology courses covering topics such as South American archaeology, economic anthropology, and the archaeology of chiefdoms and vice.  She has also led a field school at Taraco co-sponsored by UCLA and the Institute for Field Research.

Paul Goldstein is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. His teaching and research focus on anthropological archaeology, complex societies, and climate and culture change in Latin America, and Andean South America.

Paul's recent research involves the study of how the Tiwanaku civilization, the earliest state level polity that emerged in the important Lake Titicaca region of the southern Andes, expanded (ca. 350-1000 CE), setting many patterns for the subsequent rise of the Inca empire.

He has directed multiple field archaeology projects and received a variety of funding for research in Peru, Chile and Ecuador, including grants from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren, Fulbright, Heinz,  Tinker and Mellon Foundation. Paul is Vice President of the Institute for Andean Studies and has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including the Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship in Pre-Columbian Studies and has held several positions at Dartmouth College, Museo Contisuyo, Peru; American Museum of Natural History, New York; Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; and Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.